Kendrick Lamar's Video for "Loyalty" Is an Old-School Gangster Throwback

Kendrick Lamar's videos for DAMN. have been some of the most arresting short films to be viewed in a YouTube window, every bit as provocative and confrontational as each track has been. Full of references and deeply symbolic imagery, they further Lamar's reputation as someone with something to say and an inimitable manner of saying it. The video for "Loyalty," however, is a sudden departure from all that, a slick, old-school gangster hype reel, guest starring Rihanna.

It's a stylish victory lap for Kendrick Lamar, a music video that pauses to flex a bit with its mobster trappings and a more straightforward concept, casting Rihanna and Lamar as a sort of love/hate mix of equal parts Bonnie, Clyde, Sid, and Nancy. There's reckless driving, a dramatic rooftop standoff, a fistfight, and Lamar in full-on Don attire, having his muscle whack... himself.

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